Apple's Chinese mobile market share almost halves in Q2 2012

China still proves to be a difficult market for Apple to crack, with sales down by 10 per cent

China is still proving a tough one for Apple to crack, with the company's share of the smartphone market almost halved to 10 percent in the April-June period

While it's not great news for the Cupertino company, the upside may well be that customers are choosing to wait for the iPhone 5. Either that, or they've been tempted by another smartphone brand entirely.

According to data from industry research firm IDC, Chinese personal computers vendor Lenovo knocked Apple from second to fourth place, while Samsung Electronics Co kept its lead of the smartphone market.

On the bright side for Apple, smartphone shipments overtook feature phones for the first time ever during the second quarter – accounting for 51 percent of China's total mobile shipments.